A keenly awaited recovery in world advertising spending is now underway after a prolonged slump, as Europe starts to improve having lagged the other main markets, forecaster Zenith Optimedia said on Thursday.
"The much-awaited advertising market recovery is now underway... there is a major effect from elections and sporting events, and a more structural effect from a confirmed improvement in the European market allied with durable growth in the American market," the media buying and planning firm said.
It also noted that Japan was showing surprising recovery.
In its first quarterly report of the year, Zenith said 2004 would be the first year of real growth in advertising since 2000. The report covers eight countries that account for 75 percent of global ad spending.
Advertising tends to get a boost every four years from the conjunction of events that generate ad campaigns - this year there is the US presidential election, the Olympic Games and the European soccer championship.
But besides this, Zenith said there was underlying strength in all the main markets - including Europe, whose lagging performance has prevented forecasters from calling the upturn predicted for this year a true global recovery.
For the five biggest countries in Europe, Zenith saw spending up 2.7 percent at current prices from 2003 levels and 1.1 percent higher excluding tariff rises.
It forecast stronger growth in Italy, Spain, Britain and France than it expected last December at current prices, but a less robust performance in Germany.
It predicted that spending in the United States would rise 5.5 percent at current prices this year and 4.4 percent excluding tariff rises, stronger than the growth it forecast in its landmark report on the outlook for 2004 last December.